Lacerta trilineata sensu lato
Balkan green lizard
The large-bodied end of the comparison — a long-lived, late-maturing lizard whose growth record spans many seasons.
03Research
Age, range and the record a bone keeps.
Three lines of work that share a method: sample carefully, follow protocol, and report what the material actually shows.
01Skeletochronology & Age Structure
How old is that lizard, and how do you know?
Reptile bone records the seasons. In temperate species, each winter of reduced activity leaves a thin, dense line of arrested growth — a LAG — in the cortical bone, and a cross-section through a single toe phalanx preserves that record for the animal's whole life. Counting and interpreting those marks lets us estimate individual age, age at sexual maturity, longevity and growth rate from a minimally invasive sample. My master's research applied the method comparatively across three lacertid species to test how those parameters shift with body size.
Methods
Phalangeal samplingDecalcification & sectioningHaematoxylin stainingLAG counts under light microscopyBack-calculation of growth
Each winter of reduced activity leaves a thin, dense line in the cortical bone. Four lines, four winters — a minimum age of four years, plus a record of how much the animal grew between them.
02Herpetofauna Inventories
What lives here, and is it still here next season?
Faunistic survey is unglamorous and irreplaceable. Walking fixed transects at set times of day across a season, recording every amphibian and reptile encountered with its habitat, substrate and microclimate, builds the baseline against which every later change is measured. I worked on surveys in the Karamenderes Valley on the Biga Peninsula, including Araplar Gorge — a narrow, shaded, water-fed corridor that holds species the surrounding cultivated plain no longer does.
Methods
Line & visual encounter transectsHabitat characterisationMorphometric measurementPhotographic voucheringDistribution mapping
03Applied & Clinical Laboratory Science
The same discipline, a different specimen.
Since 2025 I have worked in the urinalysis laboratory of the Ankara Public Health Laboratory, performing physical, chemical and microscopic analysis of clinical samples under national quality-control protocol. Earlier, I prepared environmental assessment reports for landscape projects — site inventories of flora and fauna with habitat description and mitigation advice. Both are the same skill as the gorge survey: sample honestly, follow protocol, report what the material shows rather than what you hoped it would.
Methods
Physical & chemical urinalysisMicroscopic sediment examinationInstrument calibrationInternal quality controlEnvironmental impact reporting
Lacerta trilineataOphisops elegansParvilacerta parvaLacertidaeSkeletochronologyKaramenderesHerpetofaunaBiga PeninsulaLacerta trilineataOphisops elegansParvilacerta parvaLacertidaeSkeletochronologyKaramenderesHerpetofaunaBiga Peninsula
04Focal taxa
The three lacertids at the centre of the comparison.
Parvilacerta parva
Dwarf lizard
A small Anatolian endemic of steppe and montane grassland, and a test case for how age structure compresses at small body size.
Ophisops elegans
Snake-eyed lizard
Abundant, diurnal, heat-tolerant and widespread across Anatolia — the species you meet first on almost any transect.
05Field sites
Where the seasons were spent.
Survey work concentrated on the Biga Peninsula in north-west Anatolia, with earlier seasons on the Central Anatolian steppe around Ankara.
Araplar Gorge
Karamenderes Valley, Çanakkale
2016 — 2018
Biga Peninsula
Çanakkale, Türkiye
2018 — 2022
Central Anatolian steppe
Ankara and surroundings
2015 — 2017